jueves, 27 de diciembre de 2012

It is time for a pop quiz on Kazakhstani history. Going back more than 2000 years ago, the peoples who called what is present-day Kazakhstan home were:
A) Blood-thirsty barbarians.B) Uncultured nomads who wandered the Steppe.C) Mainly farmers who also raised cattle and horses in year-round settlements.D) A and B.
The answer may be closer to the third option (C) than previously believed, according to Claudia Chang, an archeologist at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, who has been conducting digs in Kazakhstan’s Semirechye region, just outside Almaty, for nearly 20 years. Recent findings suggest that the ancient nomadic societies of the Steppe operated in ways that do not bear much resemblance to the brutal and rudimentary picture of life that continues to linger in the popular imagination.
Chang has published her findings, along with works by eight other specialists, in a new monograph on Iron-Age archeology in Kazakhstan. The book, titled “Nomads and Networks: The Ancient Art and Culture of Kazakhstan,” was published by Princeton University Press earlier this year, in conjunction with an eponymous museum exhibition.
Originally installed at New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, the Nomads and Networks exhibition sought to place artifacts from the Saka, Wusun and Pazyryk cultures of the first millennium BC within the context of other nearby early cultures in Persia and China. Objects like the intricate Wusun Diadem, a golden latticework inlaid with turquoise- and coral-specked animals; and dozens of gold cat and ibex plaques from Shilikty in the Tarbagatai Mountains were selected partly to show off their similarity to Persian and Chinese imagery, influences that were shared mainly through trade.
Winged creatures – half-eagle, half-deer, for instance – are among the elements that were shared between Central Asian motifs and those in Persia, according to Soeren Stark, co-curator of the Nomads and Networks exhibition and a contributor to the book. The items can be traced to China, as well.
Displaying the trove of intricate golden objects made by the Steppe tribes served another function: to provide a corrective to those who, throughout history, have offered less-than-flattering portrayals of ancient Central Asian societies.
“The view that nomads are uncivilized, barbaric – no,” said Stark. “This is a very developed culture, very developed arts.”
"Nomadic elites were in close interaction [with other cultures],” Stark continued. “There was trade going on, they were serving in the Persian army.”
Ancient chroniclers were not so kind. Among their prominent characterizations, the Saka are described by contemporary Han Chinese sources as “those blue-eyed barbarians,” Chang said. The ancient Greek chronicler Herodotus, meanwhile, detailed their sacrifice practices in a graphic, grizzly manner that likely did not endear them to later readers. And, since the Steppe tribes themselves left no known written records, studying what they left behind is doubly important, noted Stark. “Archeology becomes a very important research tool because we have to go beyond the stereotypes that we read from their secondary neighbors,” he explained.
The museum exhibition appears to be part of a coordinated Kazakhstani government effort to fix Kazakhstan’s present-day international image as a modern economic and cultural hub in Central Asia that is also moving in the global mainstream. Support for the project was provided by a variety of Kazakhstani state agencies, including the embassy in Washington, Kazakhstan’s Central State Museum and the Presidential Center of Culture.
After New York, the exhibition traveled to the Smithsonian Institution’s Freer and Sackler galleries in Washington. At the opening there, then-ambassador, now-Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov touted the “beauty, elegance and sophistication of the work done by my Kazakh ancestors who made such a great, yet unsung contribution to the development of civilization." The comments were posted on the Kazakhstani embassy’s website.
Two chapters of the “Nomads and Networks” monograph focus primarily on recent discoveries at Berel in the Altai Mountains. Dozens of kurgans, or burial mounds, have yielded a bevy of artifacts, including wool, wood, and other organic objects, preserved by a layer of permafrost. Other finds in Berel range from gilded horns and tack ornaments worn by horses to the remains of the horses themselves; and those they were meant to carry – a pair of male and female relatives, according to DNA analysis.
The Berel kurgans are also hailed by some as the crowning archeological achievement in independent Kazakhstan’s short history. The picture they paint of ancient nomadic life is one that many modern-day Kazakhstanis want to see, says Chang. But, she cautioned, the kurgan excavations yielded information mainly about how members of the elite horseman class of ancient Saka society lived and died. The mounds do not reveal much about how the commoners of Saka society existed.
“It’s kind of like dealing with the 1-percenters,” Chang said, comparing members of the Saka elite to today’s top earners in the United States. “The fact is, it wasn’t just people marauding with their horses. … The more we learn about nomads, the more we realize how cliché that term is. There were a variety of economic strategies.”
In her part of the Nomads and Networks project, a published essay and a blog, Chang outlined her theories of Saka and Wusun life based on less flashy evidence. Searching through the remains of farming settlements and relying on work done to identify animal remains, she has concluded that regular people often stayed in one place, contributing food, and perhaps manpower, to the warrior elite’s armies.
“The way that it has been put to me [by my Kazakh friends] is ‘we are a nomadic civilization,’” says Chang. “But for a historian, that’s almost like a contradiction in terms.”
A curator at the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler galleries, Alexander Nagel, took a stab at how artifacts in the exhibition can align with Chang's theory.
"When you imagine how many artists took part on this production, you also get the idea of what kind of life it was," he said. "Who were the artists? ... The whole community took part in the construction of these kurgans."

Archaeologists have discovered a rare cache of artifacts, testimony of a ritual cult before the Jewish kingdom abolished them.

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By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

The discovery, like may others, was made during road excavation, this time at a new section of the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem Highway, known as Highway 1. The archaeological site is known as Tel Motza, at the Motza turnoff less than five miles west of Jerusalem.
A ritual building and a cache of sacred vessels date back approximately 2,750 years.
"The ritual building at Tel Motza is an unusual and striking find, in light of the fact that there are hardly any remains of ritual buildings of the period in Judae at the time of the First Temple," according to Anna Eirikh, Dr. Hamoudi Khalaily and Shua Kisilevitz, directors of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
“The uniqueness of the structure is even more remarkable because of the vicinity of the site's proximity to the capital city of Jerusalem, which acted as the Kingdom's main sacred center at the time,” they added. According to the archaeologists, "Among other finds, the site has yielded pottery figurines of men, one of them bearded, whose significance is still unknown."
Tel Motza and the surrounding region are renowned for their prime archaeological importance. Many finds have previously been uncovered at the site, from a variety of different periods. From the 1990

1990s to the beginning of the present millennium, the site was excavated in preparation for the new route taken by Highway 1.
At the time, the site's archaeologists proposed once more identifying the site with the Biblical settlement "Mozah" mentioned in the Book of Joshua – a town in the tribal lands of Benjamin bordering on Judaea (Joshua 18: 26). The proposal was based, among other things, on the discovery at the site of a public building, a large structure with storehouses, and a considerable number of silos.
Archaeologists identified the site as a storehouse, run by high-ranking officials, for Jerusalem's grain supplies.
The current excavations have revealed evidence that provides another aspect to our understanding of the site. "The current excavation has revealed part of a large structure, from the early days of the monarchic period (Iron Age IIA),” the archaeologists said. “The walls of the structure are massive, and it includes a wide, east-facing entrance, conforming to the tradition of temple construction in the ancient Near East: the rays of the sun rising in the east would have illuminated the object placed inside the temple first, symbolizing the divine presence within.
“A square structure which was probably an altar was exposed in the temple courtyard, and the cache of sacred vessels was found near the structure. The assemblage includes ritual pottery vessels, with fragments of chalices (bowls on a high base which were used in sacred rituals), decorated ritual pedestals, and a number of pottery figurines of two kinds: the first, small heads in human form (anthropomorphic) with a flat headdress and curling hair; the second, figurines of animals (zoomorphic) – mainly of harnessed animals.”
The archeologists stress that "The find of the sacred structure together with the accompanying cache of sacred vessels, and especially the significant coastal influence evident in the anthropomorphic figurines, still require extensive research."
Ritual elements in the Kingdom of Judah are recorded in archaeological research, especially from the numerous finds of pottery figurines and other sacred objects found at many sites in Israel, and these are usually attributed to domestic rituals.
However, the remains of ritual platforms and temples used for ritual ceremonies have only been found at a few sites of this period.
According to the site's directors, "The finds recently discovered at Tel Motza provide rare archaeological evidence for the existence of temples and ritual enclosures in the Kingdom of Judah in general, and in the Jerusalem region in particular, prior to the religious reforms throughout the kingdom at the end of the monarchic period (at the time of Hezekiah and Isaiah), which abolished all ritual sites, concentrating ritual practices solely at the Temple in Jerusalem."

An international team of researchers have returned to Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania to unravel the mystery of how humans transitioned from the first stone tool technology to a more sophisticated industryOlduvai Gorge, perhaps the most famous site for evidence of early humans, is again the subject of intense research on a decades-old question bearing on human origins: How, when and where did early humans evolve from using the first and simplest stone tool industry, that of Oldowan, to the second-oldest, and more sophisticated, stone tool technology known as the Acheulean?
While Olduvai has been picked over before, most notably by the pioneering scientists L.S.B. and Mary Leakey, advances in archaeological investigative methods and the application of multidisciplinary approaches have made it possible to take another, more detailed and comprehensive look at both the old and the new among the world-famous exposed beds, the geological earthen layers or deposits that have historically produced some of the great ground-breaking discoveries related to early human evolution. Now, under the organizational umbrella of the Olduvai Geochronology Archaeology Project, an international team of scientists composed of a consortium of researchers and institutions is focusing on reconstructing the picture of the early human transition from the simple "chopper" stone tool technology of the Oldowan industry (see image below), the world's first technology discovered at Olduvai, to the Acheulean, the more sophisticated technology represented most by the well-known bifacial "handaxe" (see image below), some of the first examples of which were found at Saint- Acheul in France, and later at Olduvai. The Oldowan is considered to have been made and used during the Lower Paleolithic, from 2.6 to 1.7 million years ago, whereas the Acheulean emerged about 1.76 million years ago and was used by early humans up to about 300,000 years ago or later.
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A handaxe from Olduvai Gorge, over 1 million years old. This stone tool is most often associated with Homo erectus, a hominin considered by many scientists to be a possible human (Homo) ancestor. Homo erectus is widely thought to be the first species to venture out of Africa to populate the Middle East/Eurasia. British Museum, Discott, Wikimedia Commons

To find answers, the team will be reappraising the chronological stratigraphy of Bed II, known to have yielded previous significant finds, and will be re-excavating some of the later beds of the best known fossil and stone tool sites. These beds reveal a record of a very important time period (1.79 - 1.15 million years ago), a record that contains evidence of critical changes in the area's fauna, stone tools and climate, such as the disappearance of Homo habilis, a very early hominin and possible human ancestor, and the emergence of Homo erectus, a later hominin considered to be the earliest human ancestor to exit Africa and spread across Eurasia. Scientists suggest that these same beds may include evidence of the long-sought transition from the more primitive Oldowan stone tools to the appearance of the more advanced Acheulean tools. Recent research at Olduvai has focused primarily on earlier beds, so research on these later beds will likely present new data to consider. Four key previously excavated sites will be investigated through full-scale excavation.

More specifically, the team's objectives are including the following activities:

Conducting test pits (very limited, targeted excavations) at selective Bed II sites that have been determined to contain possible evidence related to the emergence of Acheulean tools at Olduvai;

Applying the new landscape sampling approach across Middle and Upper Bed II deposits and conducting random test pits in the various paleo-ecological settings;

Measuring stratigraphic sections at and between key archaeological sites to determine their relative order and paleoecological contexts;

Determining the correlation of volcanic ash layers between sites to test previous proposed correlations and then establishing the basin-wide stratigraphic framework for Bed II; and finally,

Reconstructing the paleo-environments at Olduvai during the 1.7-1.3 Ma time period.

Additional information about the Olduvai Geochronology Archaeology Project can be obtained at the project website.
For information about how to participate in the research, go to the information page at the Institute for Field Research.

The remains of what is believed to be
a 2,000-year-old Roman settlement have been uncovered at the construction site
of a new bypass.

Artefacts discovered in Kingskerswell include fragments of pots thought to be
imported from southern Europe. Trenches used for defence were also found.
Devon county archaeologist Bill Horner said it was an "exciting find".
The artefacts will eventually go on show at Exeter's Royal Albert Memorial
Museum.Locals 'Romanised'
Demolition work began in October to clear the route ready for the road
linking Torbay and Newton Abbot.
The quantity and the quality of the finds suggested the people who lived
there would have been part of the local ruling elite who were becoming
"Romanised", Mr Horner said.

Remains of medieval buildings
were also found

He said: "The Romans conquered the South West and, for much of the later 1st
Century AD, the area was a military zone.

"After the army moved north to conquer the rest of the population, the native
elite were becoming more Romanised, and assimilating into the Roman Empire and
economy."
As well as the Roman finds, archaeologists also turned up evidence of
800-year-old medieval buildings.
The discoveries are not expected to delay the construction of the £110m,
5.5km (3.4 mile) bypass, construction managers said.
Devon County Council hopes the road will be completed by December 2015.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-20791039

As a team of archaeologists digs
through layers of history beneath London, the thought of the next find is never
far away.

"Just about any new discovery is thoroughly exciting," says Jay Carver, the
lead on what is currently the UK's largest archaeology project.
His team has been working alongside engineers building stations and digging
two giant tunnels under central London as part of Crossrail since 2009.
On the journey so far, finds include rare amber, hundreds of skeletons and a
Bronze Age track.
But for Mr Carver, among the most exciting discoveries was the Thames
ironworks and ship building company which occupied the entire Limmo
Peninsula.Wild animals
He said: "The site had literally been forgotten in the ground. It was 100
years old but we have pretty much been able to reconstruct it.
"To have discovered this huge timber shipway was extraordinary.
"The discovery of ancient animal bones in Paddington takes it to the other
extreme to a London with wild animals, an unbelievable concept in today's
world."

Archaeologists said the largest
piece of amber found in the UK was unearthed at Canary Wharf

Crossrail will connect 37 stations from Heathrow Airport and Maidenhead in
the west, through central London and out to Abbey Wood and Shenfield in the
east.
It is due to be completed in 2018.
Being a part of this giant feat of engineering has allowed the 100-strong
team of archaeologists to venture into largely unexplored territory.
Mr Carver said: "The project has allowed us to dig so many holes across so
many parts of London.
"It's about filling information gaps, finding out about stuff we didn't know
before and making all the details we had in the past, clearer."
He explained that digging from west to east through the centre of London,
which due to city's built-up nature is usually restricted, gives them a unique
opportunity.Roman city
"It enables us to compare and contrast areas of London by gathering
scientific data from different locations, for example excavating several sites
across west London and parts of the City.

“Start Quote

It is exciting as you spend years doing the research then
you get to dig and prove your homework”

End
QuoteMike CourtArchaeologist

"Looking at how they developed from green fields into
the city we know today and how the river system changed and developed over
thousands of years.

"It will also reveal thousands of years of history in the Square Mile which
covers what was a Roman and medieval city, which are fairly unknown."
Advances in technology may mean there is less uncertainty about what might
lay beneath the surface, but Crossrail has still delivered a few surprises.
At Canary Wharf a 55-million-year-old piece of amber was unearthed from
beneath the dock bed in 2009.
The archaeology team said very little amber had been found in London and this
piece was larger and clearer than any previously found in the UK.
The next stop for the team is Farringdon where archaeologist Mike Court will
be leading a two-week excavation in January.

The Thames ship building
company was unearthed at Limmo Peninsula

Trial digs have confirmed an old river channel and evidence of leather
production under Smithfield Market.
Mr Court said: "It is exciting as you spend years doing the research then you
get to dig and prove your homework."
"It's close to a big plague pit from the black death so it gives us a chance
to dig down but there's only a 20% chance we will find it."
Meanwhile, in a trial excavation pit at Liverpool Street in February 2011, Mr
Court said they came across what he considers to be the most exciting find on
the project so far - a silver Denarius, a Roman coin from 225AD.

The team found a silver Roman
Denarius which would have been in use across Europe at the time

"It's fairly run of the mill for sites but it gives you something in your
hand which showed the time Britain was part of the Roman Empire and puts us into
the wider context," he said.
Looking to 2013, Mr Carver said they would be working on the largest single
excavation at the site of Crossrail's ticket hall in Liverpool Street.
It is expected to reveal the less salubrious parts of Roman London outside of
the City walls with archaeologists anticipating to encounter Roman timber-framed
buildings and a street surface 6m below ground level.
The "lost" Walbrook River - a channel that divided the western and eastern
parts of the city - may also be found.
At the eastern end of the Crossrail route, archaeologists will work at four
large tunnel entrance sites at Pudding Mill Lane, Victoria Dock, North Woolwich
and Plumstead.
Here it is thought the team will come across areas where Bronze Age people
lived, farmed and hunted some 3,500 years ago.
Only halfway through its journey, and with a total of 20 archaeology sites to
explore, it is hoped there is much more to be uncovered.

The engraved stone artifact from the Shuidonggou Paleolithic site, Ningxia, Northwest China. Credit: PENG Fei Engraved objects are usually seen as a hallmark of cognition and symbolism, which are viewed as important features of modern human behavior. In recent years, engraved ochre, bones and ostrich eggs unearthed from various Paleolithic sites in Africa, the Near East and Europe have attracted great attentions. However, such items are rarely encountered at Paleolithic sites in East Asia. According to article published in the journal of Chinese Science Bulletin (vol.57, No.26), Dr. GAO Xing, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his team reported an engraved stone artifact in a stone tool assemblage at the Shuidonggou Paleolithic site, Ningxia, Northwest China.

The Shuidonggou Paleolithic site includes 12 localities, ranging in date from Early Late Paleolithic to Late Paleolithic. The engraved stone artifact was found at Locality 1, which is about 30000 years ago. As the first Paleolithic site discovered in China, Shuidonggou Locality 1 is distinctive in Late Paleolithic industry of north China, because of its components of elongated tool blank production and Levallois-like technology. When analyzing the materials unearthed from the site during excavations in the 1920s, French archaeologist Henry Breuil observed parallel incisions on the surface of siliceous pebbles, but he did not provide details on those incised pebbles. This engraved stone artifact was found in a recent technological analysis of the stone tool assemblage unearthed at the Shuidonggou site in 1980. It is the first engraved non-organic artifact from the entire Paleolithic of China. Archaeologists used a digital microscope to observe all the incisions and obtain 3D images. After excluding the possibility of natural cracking, trampling and animal-induced damage, and unintentional human by-products, they believed that the incisions were made by intentional behavior. The straight shape of each line shows that it was incised once over a short time interval without repeated cutting, implying the possibility of counting or recording at that time. Furthermore, creation of such an engraved object may indicate the possible existence of complex communicative systems such as language. "Comparison studies indicate that the blade technology was probably introduced from the Altai region of Russian Siberia, and the flake technology is typical of the Late Paleolithic in north China. So, who created the incisions, the migrants from the west or the aborigines in north China? At this time, we cannot provide a clear scenario. More archaeological and anthropological evidences are needed to solve the puzzle", said Dr. PENG Fei, first author of the study at the IVPP. "This discovery provides important material for the study of symbolic and cognitive capability of humans in the Late Paleolithic of East Asia. As we know, so-called 'behavioral modernity' is often defined as changes of technology and subsistence strategies, expansion of activity areas, revolution in cognition, and other features. Most of these features have been identified at Paleolithic sites in Europe, the Near East and Africa. But in East Asia, the issue is more complex", said project lead GAO Xing, corresponding author of the study. This work was mainly supported by the National Basic Research Program of China, the Key Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-12-engraved-stone-artifact-shuidonggou-paleolithic.html#jCp

GUATEMALA CITY - Tourists flocking to Guatemala for "end of the world" parties have damaged an ancient stone temple at Tikal, the largest archaeological site and urban centre of the Mayan civilisation.

"Sadly, many tourists climbed Temple II and caused damage," said Osvaldo Gomez, a technical adviser at the site, which is located some 550 kilometres north of Guatemala City.

"We are fine with the celebration, but (the tourists) should be more aware because this is a (UNESCO) World Heritage Site," he told local media. Gomez did not specify what was done, although he did say it was forbidden to climb the stairs at the site and indicated that the damage was irreparable.

Temple II, which is about 38 metres high and faces the central Tikal plaza, is one of the site's best known structures.

Friday marked the end of an era that lasted 5200 years, according to the Mayan "Long Count" calendar. Some believed the date also marked the end of the world as foretold by Mayan hieroglyphs.

More than 7000 people visited Tikal on Friday to see native Mayan priests hold a colourful ceremony and light fires as the sun emerged to mark the new era UNESCO declared Tikal a World Heritage Site in 1979.http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=221006

Mexican archaeologists have discovered a roughly 1,200-year-old tomb at the Zapotec site of Atzompa, a find that shows the city’s central complex not only had a civic-ceremonial area but also a residential section.
The discovery in the southern state of Oaxaca was made during work to preserve the remains of what the experts believe was a home inhabited between A.D. 750-900, the National Institute of Anthropology and History, or INAH, said in a statement.
The tomb, which contained the skeletal remains of two adults, is the fourth to be discovered in that satellite city of Monte Alban. In early 2012, a funerary complex consisting of three tombs was found inside a building in the elite sector of Atzompa.
Archaeologist Laura Mendoza Escobar, who coordinated the work at the site, said the tomb - as per the ancient Zapotec Indian funerary pattern - was found beneath the floor of what had been the main room of the residence.
She said the residence is located in an area of Atzompa where habitational spaces had previously been detected, but without the presence of a tomb.
Mendoza said the discovery leads her team to believe the occupants of the dwelling were part of a medium social strata at the service of the ruling group, making this burial site the first of its kind found at the archaeological site.
http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/latino-daily-news/details/mexican-archaeologists-discover-1200-zapotec-tomb/20586/

domingo, 23 de diciembre de 2012

There are many examples of Palaeolithic portable engravings that have been discovered, long after their excavation, among the collections stored in museums.

For example, a remarkable pair of bear figures was spotted in the mid-1980s on a rib fragment housed with the bone industry from the Magdalenian cave of Isturitz in the western Pyrenees; the rib came from a level excavated by the St Périers in 1931 (Esparza & Mujika 2003).
It is far rarer, however, for a new engraving to be found among faunal material curated within a palaeontological collection.
In the article publish in Antiquity 285 (2011) the researchers report on the discovery of a horse engraving in the collection of the Palaeontology Department of the Natural History Museum (NHM), London, some 140 years after the excavation and acquisition of the specimen.
The new engraving was found among the horse remains from the Late Magdalenian site of Roc du Courbet, Bruniquel, France.

A centuries-old mystery surrounding the bones of King Canute could soon be solved by forensic experts.They are to examine the skeletal remains of Anglo-Saxon royalty that have lain in wooden ‘mortuary chests’ at Winchester Cathedral for more than 350 years.Canute, the 11th Century king who famously tried to command the tides, was buried in the cathedral but his remains and those of his family were scattered when Roundheads ransacked it during the English Civil War.

sábado, 22 de diciembre de 2012

Only partially excavated to date, the ancient port city of Dor on the northern coast of Israel is revealing a virtual potpouri of artifacts and structural remains attributed to at least eight great civilizations that left their indelible mark at its location. Now, archaeologists return to explore remains bearing on the Roman period, including a Roman theater and private homes; a large Hellenistic period complex; a large Israelite structure; sections of a Phoenician settlement; and possibly the remains of the earlier Bronze Age city.

Among the goals of the excavation is to examine how the ancient inhabitants were influenced by a cross-cultural environment, where the business commerce brought a variety of different cultural and societal elements together into a port city that was one of the major coastal trade centers of the Middle East.
Dor dates from the Bronze Age, around 1100 BCE, to the 3rd century CE. It is considered to be the city of D-jr of Egyptian sources, Biblical Dor, and Dor or Dora from Greek and Roman sources. Dor was successively ruled by Canaanites, the "Sea Peoples" (people originating further west in the Mediterranean), Israelites, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, and later, a Crusader presence. The city served primarily as a commercial entrepot, a gateway between East and West. It is this aspect that makes the investigation of the site, as compared to many other sites, unique.
Excavations were conducted from 1980 to 2000 under the direction of Ephraim Stern of the Hebrew University, but a new consortium, consisting of two Israeli universities and several American universities, taking a multi-disciplinary approach, has renewed the excavations with the application of new technology and methodologies. Officials also hope to conserve the site and develop it more for public access.
More information about Tel Dor and how one can participate in the upcoming excavations can be obtained at http://dor.huji.ac.il/index.html and at http://depts.washington.edu/teldor/wordpress/.
http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/december-2012/article/archaeologists-dig-ancient-city-of-dor

CARAJÁS NATIONAL FOREST, Brazil — Archaeologists must climb tiers of orchid-encrusted rain forest, where jaguars roam and anacondas slither, to arrive at one of the Amazon’s most stunning sights: a series of caves and rock shelters guarding the secrets of human beings who lived here more than 8,000 years ago.

Almost anywhere else, these caves would be preserved as an invaluable source of knowledge into prehistoric human history. But not in this remote corner of the Amazon, where Vale, the Brazilian mining giant, is pushing forward with the expansion of one of the world’s largest iron-ore mining complexes, a project that will destroy dozens of the caves treasured by scholars.

The caves, and the spectacular mineral wealth in their midst, have presented Brazil with a dilemma. The iron ore from Carajás, exported largely to China where it is used to make steel, is a linchpin of Brazil’s ambitions of reviving a sluggish economy, yet archaeologists and other researchers contend that the emphasis on short-term financial gains imperils an unrivaled window into a nebulous past.

“This is a crucial moment to learn about the human history of the Amazon, and by extension the peopling of the Americas,” said Genival Crescêncio, a caver and historian in Pará State, which includes Carajás. “We should be preserving this unique place for science, but we are destroying it so the Chinese can open a few more car factories.”

As Brazil embarks on a frenzied effort to increase mining and improve infrastructure, work crews in the Amazon and beyond are unearthing one startling discovery after another. In Rio de Janeiro, archaeologists are examining a slave market and cemetery where thousands of Africans were buried. The discoveries have complicated the upgrade of the harbor and public transportation network ahead of the 2016 Olympic Games.

Brazilian courts can require companies to preserve archaeological sites, or at least transfer archaeological material to universities or museums where it can be studied, before work continues. In some cases, rulings have stalled huge projects, as Anglo American, the mining giant, discovered this year when prosecutors halted work on a large mining project in Minas Gerais State over concerns that an archaeologically significant cave could be damaged.

Scholars say that the caves of Carajás, which archaeologists began exploring in the 1980s, offer coveted insight into what may be the earliest known stages of human settlement in the world’s largest tropical rain forest, helping to piece together the puzzle of how the Americas came to be inhabited.

Pieces of ceramic vessels and tools made of amethyst and quartz are among the signs of human occupation from thousands of years ago. Such artifacts, along with the abundance of the caves and rock shelters themselves, make Carajás one of the Amazon’s most important places for the study of prehistoric humans.

The Amazon is already a hotbed of archaeological investigation, as researchers find evidence that far more people might have lived in the region than once considered possible. While the Amazon was once thought incapable of supporting large, sophisticated societies, researchers now contend that the region might have been home to thriving urban centers before the arrival of Columbus.

Before those cities were carved out of the forest, people lived in the Amazon’s caves. At Pedra Pintada, a cave that, like those in Carajás, is also in Pará, Anna C. Roosevelt, an American archaeologist, has shown that hunter-gatherers moved to the region 10,900 to 11,200 years ago, far earlier than once thought, about the same time people in North American were hunting mammoths.

Outside the Amazon, remarkable discoveries have been announced in recent months at other Brazilian sites. At Lapa do Santo, a rock shelter near the city of Belo Horizonte, archaeologists said this year that they had found the New World’s oldest known figurative petroglyph. The rock art, a drawing of a man with an oversize phallus, is thought to have been made 10,500 to 12,000 years ago.

To reach the caves of Carajás, researchers must drive hours along washboard roads cut through the jungle, before scaling escarpments with spectacular views of the Carajás Mountains, a range of canopied peaks rising out of the forest. Macaws fly overhead and bats swirl inside the earth cavities in which hunting tribes once found shelter.

Some of the caves, substantially cooler inside their openings than the surrounding forest, are large enough for more than a dozen people; others might have provided just enough space for two or three people.

Vale, then a state-owned company, began developing the iron ore deposits here after they were discovered in 1967 by a Brazilian geologist on assignment to find manganese for the U.S. Steel Corporation. Vale has since been privatized, but the government still controls big equity stakes.

Thanks largely to its Carajás complex, where thousands of workers labor 24 hours a day amid the clamor of digging machines, Vale accounts for 16 percent of Brazil’s total exports. As Vale grapples with a sharp decline in profits this year and delays at projects outside Brazil, Carajás is expected to become more important.

Vale has said it plans to create 30,000 jobs in the expansion of iron-ore mining at Carajás, a $20 billion project called Serra Sul, which is already luring thousands of migrants from around Brazil to this frenetic part of the Amazon.

To comply with regulations governing archaeological sites, Vale executives said, the company hired archaeologists and a team of speleologists, or cavers, to survey the caves, which are clustered around the open-pit Carajás mine. Vale also adapted its construction proposal to preserve some caves while planning to destroy dozens of others. While Vale acknowledged that at least 24 of the caves to be destroyed are of “high relevance,” it said it would also preserve caves in another part of Pará to compensate for their loss.

“For us there is just one procedure, and that is being transparent,” said Gleuza Josué, Vale’s environmental director. Describing the expansion of Carajás as a project of “paramount importance,” she said that Vale had rigorously complied with environmental and archaeological legislation in order to move forward with its plans.

Regulatory officials said they had won concessions from Vale but had not been able to stop the mine expansion. Despite archaeological concerns, the government granted the company a crucial environmental license in June, allowing the expansion to move forward.

The company still needs another installation license, expected to be granted in 2013, to go ahead with Serra Sul. Archaeologists and cavers familiar with Carajás seem resigned to the possibility that Vale will get its way.

Frederico Drumond Martins, a government biologist who oversees the Carajás National Forest, said he remained concerned that mine expansions here in the decades ahead could eventually destroy every last cave in Carajás.

Renato Kipnis, a respected archaeologist in São Paulo whom Vale hired to survey the caves of Carajás, said that Vale had prohibited him from discussing their archaeological significance, because of a confidentiality agreement Vale had required him to sign. Later, a Vale spokeswoman allowed Mr. Kipnis to be interviewed by e-mail, but only if the company was allowed to vet his replies.

In written replies screened by Vale, he marveled at the importance of the caves.

“The great challenge,” he said, “is finding middle ground between preservation and development.”

Dec 16, Colombo: Archaeological researchers of Sri Lanka have discovered the ruins of an ancient hospital, believed to be about 2,000 years old, in Anuradhapura, the historic capital city of North Central Province.

The ruins of the ancient hospital have been found near the ancient Thuparamaya Dagoba that is believed to have been initially constructed in third century B.C.

A spa, medical rooms and medical equipment including grinding stones and knives have been recovered so far. A latrine system that is carved in rock has also been identified.

The Director of the Abhayagiriya Archaeological Project Prof. T.G. Kulathunga said that ruins are similar to the findings of other ancient hospitals in Anuradhapura.

The Archaeological Department has also commenced excavations of a hospital ground in Anuradhapura Maha Vihara temple near Ruvanwelisaya.

jueves, 20 de diciembre de 2012

SHIBUKAWA, Gunma -- The skeleton of a man in armor dating from the early sixth century has been discovered in a layer of volcanic ash here, the Gunma Archaeological Research Foundation announced on Dec. 10.
The armor-clad remains were found at the Kanai Higashiura ruins here during archaeological excavations accompanying road construction. According to the foundation, the armor is the first set from the Kofun (burial mound) period ever discovered on the body of its owner. The only other pieces of armor from the period have been found among grave goods in tombs. The man is thought to have been caught in the eruption of Mt. Haruna's Futatsudake, a nearby volcano.
"The find is a valuable clue for learning about the life, habits and disasters of the time," said a foundation representative.
The Kanai Higashiura ruins are around nine kilometers northeast of Futatsudake. The skeleton, intact save the back of the skull and the pelvis, was found in a ditch around two meters wide and one meter deep. As the skeleton was found facing the volcanoes with its legs bent and facing downward, the research foundation speculates that the man may have been conducting a ritual to "calm the anger" of the volcanoes.

The armor is made of small overlapping metal plates, a type called kozane yoroi thought to have been produced only in the Kansai region far to the southeast of modern Shibukawa. Furthermore, kozane yoroi has never been discovered in Gunma outside the tombs of the ruling classes, leading foundation archaeologists to speculate the man was a local leader or other high-status individual with close connections to the Yamato kingdom.
Three iron swords have been found in the Kanai Maruyama tomb in the western section of the ruins, and the foundation says they could be related to the man found on Dec. 10. Also, the skull of an infant and around a dozen iron arrowheads have been uncovered nearby.
"This find is like a piece of the Kofun period being cut out and displayed for modern times," says archaeologist Kazuo Migishima of Gunma University. "In the Gunma area, kozane yoroi armor has only been found in the tombs of the ruling classes or those of similar rank, so the man was probably of the ruling classes. Kozane yoroi was state-of-the-art at the time and required high expertise to make. The find inspires speculation that there was a connection between the Yamato Oken (western rulers) and Togoku (eastern states)."